On Sunday, March 29th 2015, Hannah Johnson threw Cody and I our Bridal Shower! We were so excited to share this day with our friends and family.
Cody and I registered at Bed Bath & Beyond and Target. Our experience at Bed Bath & Beyond was fabulous. We had a wedding registry representative that spent FOUR hours with us!! He walked us all around the store and gave us a lot of great recommendations. He was very knowledgeable about all of the products in the store and he answered all of the questions that we had. We were absolutely thrilled with the process and there were SO many choices there!! It was also so easy to add things to our registry... we walked around with a scanner gun and just scanned things onto our registry. If you are looking for a place to get registered I would highly recommend Bed Bath & Beyond. Cody and I were a little less thrilled about Target. They gave us a scanner and we walked around on our own... which was fine, but then our registry never really worked online. We were never able to manage our registry and we weren't too happy about that. I'm not sure that we would want to register at Target for anything else again.
But now back to the Big Day! I got to Hannah's house a few hours early to have Sam help do my hair and makeup. I can't get over how much Sam's grown up in the last few years! She went from this sweet little girl... to this beautiful woman... who can legit do hair and make up better than I can!! You can see Hannah and Sam working on getting my bump just right.
Final Product! Thanks to my stylists! My dress was even inspired from the dress that Hannah wore at her bridal shower. I loved how it look so much that I looked for something similar to wear at mine.
I was so happy with how everything turned out! The girls really did such a good job. We had a Vegas theme because that is Cody and my favorite place.
Here is a close up of the center pieces on the table.
Even further of a close up. Sam took this picture. Isn't it neat? I love the little dice beads that were on the table. So pretty!
Here is a view of the whole room. You can see that Cody and my chairs were specially marked.
This was my chair. I ended up wearing the pin for the whole day. And I'm excited to eventually put it into my scrap book too.
Here is Cody's pin. I was happy that he was included in having a pin too. A lot of wedding stuff is very bride focused and not really groom focused. So I know on a few occasions he's felt left out of stuff, but I'm glad in this case he wasn't.
Here are my bridesmaids that were able to attend the shower. Aren't we lovely ladies?!?! Krista wasn't able to make it due to a vacation freeze at her work, but I'm glad she'll be able to come to the wedding.
Here is the mandatory pose of the three of us. I swear, we've taken so many pictures just like this! I have to get one just like it on the wedding day!
Now as we are posing, Sam, our photographer, tells us she wants us to be more natural and more photo journalist... so she tells us to just start laughing so that we don't look posed! Too funny!!
My maid of honor and I! :)
I can't believe how adorable Sam is! Isn't this a super cute picture? Gosh... this is the pose the three of us should have done!! But Sam's such a natural... I probably wouldn't have been able to pull off that look haha.
Bride and Groom to be!
Here we are with our moms.
The Debs!
Aunt Renae and Aunt Mary
Aunt Karen and Mrs. Kelly
Cody and his aunt
Aunt Becky and I.
Cody and his mom
Aunt Mary and Deb
Some of my favorite ladies!
Mmmmm these pretzel treats are so good! I swear I probably ate almost all of these. It is just such a yummy combination of sweet, salty, and crunchy! Sam made these from Hannah's shower and I requested that they make an appearance at my shower as well.
Here is the beautiful cake that my mom had ordered for us. I love how she had our wedding colors added into the cake! It was very sweet and delicious!
Here are some of the drinks that we had. The Sangria was a crowd pleaser.
Hannah was worried about having enough food at the shower, but from what I saw she shouldn't have worried at all. There was MORE than enough food for everyone, and everything was really yummy.
Here we are cutting the cake. I told Cody that it was practice for the wedding day.
Here he goes...
We just each got our own piece and we didn't feed it to each other this time... we'll save that for the wedding day.
Here is everyone from dad's family eating.
Sam and Cody's family all together.
Mom's family.
The Douglas family
Then it was game time! These girls really did a ton of planning because they had 5 games that we played during the shower!!! And they had all kinds of wrapped presents that they gave away and everything. They all did a really good job.
The first game was a cool game where you use the letters in Cody and my name to make different words. The person with the most word combinations won. Cody and I worked on it together, and I think that the winner had like 10 or 20 more words than we did!
Here was the container with all of the presents. A whole bunch of these presents were used during the Right and Left game. I think that this is one of the most fun games that I've ever played at a wedding shower. I really enjoyed writing Hannah's and I really loved listening to the story she wrote about us. Here it is below:
MELANIE AND CODY'S STORY SO FAR...
Melanie and Cody first met in 2011, which provide to be the right year for them. Melanie was in the right place at the right time when she was interning at Bendix in Elyria. Cody happened to be living right nearby and fate intervened.
Their first date certainly made the right impression. Cody took Melanie to the zoo and then to Chili's. Once they left Chili's, Cody went to Melanie's house where they played the right game of Back Alley together with Melanie's parents. Cody must have had the right skills to impress Melanie's dad at Back Ally. When he left that night, Melanie knew Cody was something special.
Things didn't slow down for Melanie and Cody. They next weekend was a Memorial Day party where Cody got to meet the entire family. Once again, things went the right way and Cody fit in perfectly with her family.
Melanie and Cody realized how much they both loved traveling. They took every opportunity they could to find the right flight at the right price and they jetted off as often as they could. They left the country on a cruise, where they shared an amazing week of adventure together. This proved they were the right traveling partners for one another.
Melanie knew Cody was the right one. They moved in together, renting a house in North Olmsted on the left side of Wellesley Ave. They spent a year in the house, now knowing what kind of home would be right for them. It was time to build one of their own. There were home building sites left and right, so many places to look. They knew they wold have to search for the right location. North Royalton proved to be the right place for them, and so the home building process began. It went by quickly and before they knew it, they had built their dream home together, the right way.
Building a house didn't stop Melanie and Cody from traveling. One trip led to another and soon they fond the right destination for them. Las Vegas was their place. Although they had been to Vegas many times before, when they left for this trip, something else was on Cody's mind. This trip they stayed at the Cosmopolitan. When they left the airport and arrived at the Cosmopolitan, Melanie had no idea that they would be upgraded to a 40th story warp around balcony suite for their stay. This was the right thing to say, as an upgrade to their suite was done the right way. They left the lobby and made their way to the suite, much to Melanie's excitement and surprise.
Melanie's favorite place in Vegas had always been the fountains at the Bellagio. Cody knew this was the right place. They left the hotel room that night and headed to a fancy dinner with a view of the fountains. A balcony overlooking the fountains seemed to be the right place for Cody to ask Melanie an important question, "will you marry me?" Melanie knew the right answer was "yes!" And knowing Melanie, Cody made sure the moment was captured the right way. He made sure plenty of pictures were taken capturing the moment before they left.
Once home, it was time to fill their big house with some furry kids. They went to the APL, where they found the right kittens for them. They left the APL and waited to bring the boys home. They decided that the right name of one of their boys was "Cosmo" in honor of the Cosmopolitan, the place they were staying when they got engaged!
So here we are now, not many days left until their wedding day! The big day is right around the corner. Having known Melanie since 3rd grade, I am happy to say that she has found the right man for her and I can't wait to be a part of Melanie and Cody's special day!
The next game was the Newly Wed game, where everyone had to guess how many questions I would get right. As you can see... I only got 11/25. :( I later answered all the questions and asked them to Cody and he got 15/25 right so I didn't feel too bad. It's really hard to come up with the answers on the spot with everyone watching you... and I do think that some of the answers that I gave weren't far off from being correct, but at the time that Cody answered them he thought of something else. I guess that's why it was a game show for so many years...
Next we played a game where you match the candy type to a description. It's actually a much harder game than what it looks like!
Here are some action shots of everyone trying to fill in the game.
Mom is trying so hard...
So are the guys...
Haha! Looks like Aunt Becky was having some trouble.
Everyone else in the other room.
After that we played a different game, where you use toilet paper to make a wedding dress. The bride and groom get to decide who has the best wedding dress and that team wins. I can't believe how much everyone got into it!! You can see mom and aunt Karen working on Mrs. Kelly!
Hannah's grandma actually went to Hannah's flower vase and ripped her flowers apart to give them to Mrs. Kelly to hold onto as props!! Haha!!!
Here is Cody's family dressing Steph up.
Her finished look.
My aunts and Katelynn were in it, to win it! They had an elaborate design and matched the Vegas Theme... with cards and flowers in strategic places! Haha!!
Hilariously dad was the Douglas team's model.
He had toliet paper tucked into this belt and all three women said that they did not do any of the tucking and that it was all Arianna. Dad kept joking that they all had a hand in it and liked doing it.. Hrmm... here is the picture with the proof!
Here is Dad and Aunt Becky. You can barely tell in the picture but they used balls on Hannah's table to make dad's bosom area stand out. It was pretty funny!
Here are all of the toilet paper brides. I can't believe how much effort and work everyone put into making these dresses! So awesome!
Here are the two judges deliberating on who the winner was. We were really going back and forth on it. We ended up rock, paper, and scissoring to figure out who the winner was. I won't say who it was between though! Because everyone worked so hard...
The judges with all the models...
The winning team! Dad's dress just ended up being too funny in the end. When he won he started to give a speech thanking all the little people that made it possible...
Next was present time! Everyone was so generous and I think we were opening presents for probably over an hour! We went to Bed Bath and Beyond today and with the money and gift cards we got we were able to buy almost everything on our registry that we really wanted to get.
Here we are with the full paparazzi taking pictures haha. I swear everyone single woman had their camera on us, but it's ok... I like pictures being taken.
Cody and I worked as a team opening up the presents. I read all of the cards. Also my team of bridesmaids also stepped in to help us. My cousin Hannah kept track of who bought us what. Maid of Honor, Hannah, helped make my bow bouquet. Steph helped slide the presents to us and keep up with the trash. :)
Scrub Daddy!!! I saw this on Shark Tank a few years ago and I've been wanting one ever since! I was hoping that we would get these. Once I opened it I gave everyone a little commercial on how awesome they are haha. I heard people saying "Well... If I knew that, that's what I would have gotten her..." lol
The hands down funniest gift was from Aunt Karen. Of course, she would get me lingerie! And of course my dad had to act scandalized by it... I think everyone was laughing by his reaction.
You can tell by my bow bouquet that I was registered at Bed Bath & Beyond and that everyone took advantage of the free gift wrapping service that they provide. Hannah did a really good job at making the bouquet look really pretty though despite it being almost all purple ribbons. She also kept encouraging me to break some ribbons... which I broke 2 of by the way.
Here she is presenting me with the bouquet. I love how easy she made the handle to hold!!
Overall, Cody and I couldn't have asked for a better Wedding Shower. We were both so happy by how everything turned out. The girls really did a great job, and everything was very beautiful. Cody and I both want to sincerely thank everyone who was able to make it and share the day with us. Also to those who weren't able to make it but sent us well wishes. We are so excited to go through the whole wedding process, and this was definitely a highlight for us.
